On Wed, Mar 29, 2000 at 03:56:10PM +0100, Roger Brooks wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 12:19:15PM +0300, Jukka Marin wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 07:14:07PM +1000, Daniel Carosone wrote:
> > > If you have a new enough phone that supports the at emulation, via
> > > either IrDA (no good for netbsd) or the serial dongle, then it's
> > > simple - it looks like a modem.
> > > 
> 
> So I'm wondering about porting the Linux IrDA code.  It's about 40,000
> lines of kernel and headers plus about 7,000 lines of userland stuff,
> so I'm not about to sit down and write a fresh implementation from scratch
> if some of the Linux code might be reusable.  So I'd appreciate advice
> as to the forms in which it might be possible to incorporate it in a
> NetBSD release.

I know the main author of the Linux-Irda code as we work in the same
project group (meaning we work in the same Lab but not on the same
stuff). I have subtly and less-subtly tried to push him into making
a *BSD port of his code in the past. Without to much effect; he
simply has not the time to do it. He has mentioned that a port to BSD
should not be that difficult as little code depends on
kernel-specifics (this statement can be a bit incorrect due to lack of 
familiarity on the differences between Linux and BSD though). I think
a lot of the kernel code could be pushed to userland (maybe at a
performance penalty).

Also, there is the licence issue.  I discussed this with him in the 
past and I can say that *he* his willing to release *his* code under a 
BSD license (so that somebody can port and include it into *BSD).
Unfortunately, that's not enough. Many people have contributed to the
code and supplied patches (under the assumption that they contributed
to GPL-ed code). The big questions are then:

1 Do we need all contributers permission to release the code under BSD
  licence?
2 If so, are we able to track them all down.
3 If we don't get permission (of some), can we still separate their
  contributions from the main code tree.

Note that these questions need to be answered without requiring to
much time from the main author. Also note that AFAIK the code tree has
not been under a revision control regime like CVS, which complicates
point 2 and 3 above. Maybe a GPL-license guru could answer point 1
above (as I and the Linux-Irda author are not sure about such license
details).

So, it may be worthwhile to talk to the Linux-Irda author for anybody
considering porting the code to BSD and see what comes out of it.

Feico Dillema.